Sylvia Lewis danced with the stars

The stages of early Hollywood studios are littered with the broken hearts of chorus dancers who failed to professionally transition beyond the dance floor. But Sylvia Lewis, who turns 85 on April 22, was not one of them.

Although she describes her career as “modest,” she worked with film greats such as The Three Stooges, Jerry Lewis and John Wayne, accumulating over 60 film and TV credits during her 65-year career as a dancer, choreographer and actress, as well as numerous stage performances (see sylvialewis.net).

Lewis appeared as a dancer in John Wayne’s “The Conqueror,” released 60 years ago this year, which featured location shooting near St. George. Although modestly successful at the box office, it was largely panned in reviews for miscasting Wayne as Mongolian Emperor Genghis Khan. Even Wayne found it a tough project to complete.

“My dance scene was shot towards the end with Duke watching me,” said Lewis from her home in Thousand Oaks, California. “He was very sweet but, as I recall, was half-crocked while we did that sequence. It was probably the only way he could handle getting through the film.”

While the movie may have struck out with critics, Lewis’s outfit was striking.

“When costume designer Michael Woulfe showed me the sketch I thought, ‘Wow, what an incredible outfit.’ It was a flesh-colored body suit of fine fishnet that stretched from the tip of my toes up to my neck and covered in red fringes. But they could only attach the fringes while I had the body suit on. Two wardrobe women stitched every row of fringe by hand, while I stood for about 100 hours.”

The risqué costume also attracted the attention of censors.

“The body suit blended so well, it looked like I was naked and wearing just the fringes,” explained Lewis. “So we were required to have one close-up shot in the film so the audience could see I was actually wearing something. Nevertheless, the whole dance sequence was cut from the movie in many parts of the country.”

In addition to the Wayne casting debacle, “The Conqueror” has long been infamous for exposing the location production company to residual radiation from above-ground nuclear weapons testing in nearby Nevada during the early 1950s.

While it’s well-documented that regional residents were affected by long-term radiation exposure, it’s difficult to prove claims that high radiation levels at location shooting sites led to what is perceived as a high incidence of cancer cases among the cast and crew in subsequent years.

“In my mind, I think it was a factor,” noted Lewis. “I’m the only cast member on the credits who is still alive, but we did the dance scene in the Los Angles studio, so I didn’t go on location.”

With her exotic looks and dance skills, Lewis was hired to tempt Shemp of the Three Stooges in the 1955 short, “Bedlam in Paradise.” Lewis plays a minion of the devil, attempting to lure Shemp from entering the Pearly Gates.

“It was a redo of an earlier Stooges short (1948’s ‘Heavenly Daze’) with additional scenes added,” explained Lewis. “Director Jules White interviewed me the day before we shot it, but had almost no budget and just threw it all together. They took me down to wardrobe, put me in tights and a leotard, then sewed a devil’s tail on and found a hat with horns. The next morning we shot it by lunchtime. There wasn’t even any music to dance to, just a click track like a metronome, and they added the music later. The director told me to just ad-lb, so I really didn’t know what the hell I was doing! But Shemp was a good old vaudeville performer and followed right along.”

In “The Ladies Man” (1961) with Jerry Lewis, it was Sylvia who was given instructions to follow along after Jerry’s character takes a job at a boarding house for women. Warned not to enter one particular room, his curiosity naturally gets the better of him and he discovers the alluring Miss Cartilage, played by Sylvia.

“It’s the iconic ‘White Room’ scene,” said Sylvia. “The mail and comments I still get about it from around the world just flabbergasts me. Jerry had this vision in his mind and said to just follow him, so what you see is me literally chasing him around that set.”

As the name suggests, the entire room is white with the exception of Sylvia and Jerry’s clothes, “and my bright red lipstick” noted Sylvia.

“When I saw the set for the first time it was spectacular,” she recalled. “The floor, walls, furniture, curtains – every texture and shade of white you could imagine. I never knew there were so many!”

Sylvia had previously worked as a chorus dancer with Martin and Lewis on “The Colgate Comedy Hour” in the 50s.

“I got a call from Jerry to come talk to him about working in ‘The Ladies Man’ and he signed me to do it. I spent 11 weeks on the set, just hanging around hoping to get 10 minutes with him to begin rehearsing. But it never happened until towards the end of shooting, even though I was paid for being at the studio every day.”

It turned out that Jerry was saving Sylvia’s scene to the end, which opens with her suspended upside down on a rope descending into the room after Jerry sneaks in.

“He wanted a double to do it because he thought it was dangerous, and three or four girls were hurriedly found. But none of them looked like me so I convinced him to let me do it,” she said.

Despite his reputation for being difficult and a perfectionist, Sylvia says she got along well with Jerry (who turned 90 earlier in April).

“I’d heard the stories and was prepared for anything,” she recalled. “As I waited all those weeks on the set, I did see how tough he could be, but he was always very kind and respectful to me. In fact, I can say during my Hollywood years I was never treated better by anyone. Why? I’ll never know!”

In addition to purely dancing roles, Lewis was a regular cast member on Ray Bolger’s 50’s comedy series “Where’s Raymond?” playing his Broadway leading lady and she also choreographed the weekly dance numbers. She continued to act, choreograph, and dance into the 1990s on shows such as “The Dick Van Dyke Show,” “Who’s the Boss?” and “Married with Children.” Clips from many of her performances can be viewed on her web site.

Sylvia Lewis, left, on 'The Dick Van Dyke Show'(Photo: submitted)

She also credits her long, active dance career for good health.

“Most of my girlfriends, if they haven’t passed away, have had knee or hip replacements. I kept dancing and working throughout my life without any problems,” she says. “I may curl up and wither away tomorrow, but so far so good!”

Nick Thomas teaches at Auburn University at Montgomery, Ala., and has written features, columns, and interviews for over 600 magazines and newspapers.